


Busted

by RoseAngel



Series: The Red Thread [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, First Meetings, Gen, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 06:59:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9061012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseAngel/pseuds/RoseAngel
Summary: An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break. - Ancient Chinese belief
A series of alternate ways that John and Sherlock could have met. PROMPT FIC
Prompt #12: Oh my gosh I thought this was my window my mom is going to kill me if she realizes I snuck out so I'll just be going now if you don't mind.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I've done an awful job of sticking to my post-every-weekend rule, haven't I? Sorry - turns out life is still busy after graduation. Hope you all had a fabulous Christmas!
> 
> A million thanks to my beautiful beta, Becca (LlamaWithAPen), who is responsible for any of these fics being as tidy as they are.
> 
> Today's prompt comes from FanFiction.Net User Etmire T.

His feet slammed against the concrete, his heart pounding in his chest. Behind him, he could hear the sound of footsteps, echoing his own. He was ahead, but it was not enough. They were gaining on him. They might catch up.

It was two o'clock in the morning, and fourteen-year-old Sherlock Holmes had decided that he needed some air. The young teenager had long ago trained his body to survive without sleeping every night; he felt no desire to curl up in his bed and waste several hours being unconscious when there were so many more interesting things to do. There were experiments to be done, books to be read, work to be completed. Why would he want to spend time that he could be spending on those tasks asleep?

Sherlock's mind was not the kind that was easily calmed. It was always buzzing with thoughts, memories, and plans, and some days, it was worse than others. Most of the time, Sherlock could work with it, like he was supposed to. He could work through the thoughts in his mind, prioritising some thoughts and locking others away in separate areas until he had no choice but to deal with them. However, there were times when Sherlock could not get his mind to stop, and it was too loud and too fast and he could not do anything with it. Tonight was one of those times, and he had learnt that his best option was to leave the house and step outside. He could focus on the feel of the cool air and the glow of the streetlights and the sound of the occasional cars, until these thoughts grounded him and he could go back to whatever he was working on.

Unfortunately, he was not the only one who had decided to take a midnight wander. London was not a small town by anyone's definition, and yet, you always seemed to run into people you don't want to see. In Sherlock's case, these people were a small gang of boys in his year, who had made it their lives' missions to make Sherlock's life a living hell for as long as they could manage. Sherlock could not remember if he had done anything to trigger this behaviour – he had undoubtedly insulted them at one point or another, simply because he had insulted most of the people who he came into contact with on a regular basis. It was hardly his fault that they said such idiotic things. Really, though, Sherlock got the impression that these boys would have chosen him as their victim even if he had not given them incentive. Sherlock was scrawnier than them, smarter than them, and they would find any excuse they could to make him miserable.

Sherlock had had his fair share of black eyes. He had no interest in receiving another one tonight, especially not when it meant that his mother would discover he had sneaked out at night. She would be furious. No, worse than that – she wouldn't be furious, she would be _disappointed_ , because Sherlock would have broken an unspoken rule and lost her trust. Sherlock couldn't stand the thought of the disappointed expression on her face.

Words had been exchanged, between the boys and Sherlock. Threats had been made. Then, one had dragged his arm back, ready to throw the punch, and Sherlock had dodged, kicked the boy's legs out from underneath him, and run.

It gave him an advantage, but only temporarily. It did not take the boy long to scramble to his feet, and then they had a motive, a reason to not want to let Sherlock get away. They would not just leave him be; they would chase him down and make sure he was far more injured than the boy was from the fall. Unless Sherlock got home, to the safety of his own bedroom, before they caught up to him, he was doomed to have far more than just a black eye.

So, now Sherlock was running, as fast as he could manage. He took twists and turns at every corner he found, hoping to lose them, but he was never far enough ahead to stay out of sight for long.

Sherlock could not outrun them, not easily. He was fast, but they were faster. Fortunately, while Sherlock did not have any advantages physically, he certainly had advantages in his mind. One such advantage was the rather intricate map of London in his head.

He made a sharp turn into the alleyway, hoping that the lack of warning would give him a few more seconds' head-start, but he could not afford to slow down for a second. He continued to sprint towards the end of the alleyway, until he could reach the fire escape for one of the nearby flats. He leaped off the ground, grabbing the fire escape and pulling it down with his weight so that he could scramble up the stairs, up onto the roof of the building.

He was not safe up here. The creaks and squeaks of the fire escape behind him told him that the boys knew where he had gone, and were trying to follow him up. Fortunately, Sherlock had no intention to stay up on the roof for longer than was strictly necessary. He ran across the roof of the building, leaped from one roof to the next, and then scrambled down the next fire escape. By the time the bullies would have reached the roof of the building, Sherlock would be out of sight.

He allowed himself a second to catch his breath, once he reached the ground, but he could not afford to stop and wait for long. He would not be safe until he was in his bedroom, locked away from bullies that would happily leave him with bruises. He pushed off the wall and started running again. He was only a few streets away from his house, now. He was almost there.

The words "There he is" behind him caught his attention before he had turned one corner, and he knew that he had been seen. He was close, so close, but not close enough. He could yell for help, yes, and in a moment he would be close enough to his own house that, if he did yell for help, his mother might even hear him. But, then his mother would know that he had sneaked out, and that was precisely what he was trying to avoid. If he wanted to remain unharmed, and also keep it a secret that he often slipped out of his window at night, he needed to get inside before the bullies reached him.

It was this thought that spurred him on, faster, and faster, even though his legs ached. He turned the corner into his own street, but he took the turn faster than he should have on the uneven ground. He skidded and fell, trying to catch himself before he hit the ground, but he failed. He landed on his elbow, first, and then his hip, sliding on the ground a little. He winced in pain, but he could not let it slow him down. He scrambled to his feet once more, ignoring the pain on his skin, and he tried to run again. He was limping now, a little, and it slowed him down, but he pushed through it as best he could. He did not have any time to lose.

He turned off the main road and sprinted towards his house, taking a running leap for the wall. He knew the uneven brickwork, knew where his fingers could fit, though he found himself scrabbling for purchase a bit more than usual, struggling to find the usual hands and foot holds in the dark. He could hear footsteps rounding the corner, hear his bullies approaching, but they were never able to get close enough. He managed to hook his fingers over the edge of the windowsill and hoist himself up, through the open window, and he let gravity pull him the rest of the way to the floor.

He didn't get to his feet immediately, keeping himself hidden below the window, though he knew now that he was safe. They would not try to do any more harm to him now. They would not try to break into his house to hurt him. He was safe, now – at least until the next time that he ran into them, in the school grounds. For now, however, Sherlock was safe.

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths, letting his heart rate slow. When he opened them again, he froze.

There was a man on his bed.

Well, no, "man" was not quite the correct term. The person on Sherlock's bed was only a boy – older than Sherlock by at least a few years, but not old enough to be out of school. Sherlock scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, the shock causing him to bump the back of his head against the wall. He hissed in pain, but refused to move any closer.

The boy did not look like he wanted to hurt Sherlock. He was not even speaking. He was just sitting there, staring at Sherlock with a bewildered look on his face. It made him look less threatening, almost harmless, and perhaps that was the reason why Sherlock could muster up the courage to speak.

"What are you doing in my room?" he demanded, putting on the most dangerous tone he could manage in the hope that it would scare the boy off before this escalated into whatever the boy had originally planned when he broke into Sherlock's room in the first place.

The boy's response, however, only confused Sherlock more. He didn't run for the door like Sherlock had hoped he would. Instead, he just looked startled. "Your room?" he said. "This is my room."

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, and then closed it again as his attention spread out, to look past the boy on his bed and to take in the room more generally. There was no periodic table on the wall, no test tubes on the desk, no pile of Mycroft's old university-level textbooks stacked on the bookshelf. Instead, there were posters of people who Sherlock assumed were celebrities, there was a laptop on the desk with some sort of movie paused on the screen, and there were a bunch of books on the shelf that Sherlock did not own – mostly fiction, some classics that Sherlock had heard of and others that were completely unfamiliar.

This was not Sherlock's room.

How could Sherlock have been so stupid? He had been focusing more on trying to escape from his bullies than on where he was going, but how could he have climbed the wall into the wrong window?

In his head, Sherlock pulled up a map of London to track his movements over the last several minutes. He located the street where he had been when his bullies had found him, and he lit it up with a dot. Then, he moved the dot through the streets, following the route he was sure he had taken. The fire escape he climbed up had been one he used before, which was why he knew to turn down that particular alleyway, so he was sure of where he was at that point. When he had climbed back down off the roof, he had only been a couple of streets away from his house. Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere? No, he had definitely turned into his own street – he had seen the street sign, had run beneath the streetlamp that always flickered on and off. So, if he had made it to his own street, then he must have climbed through a window that was –

Oh.

He turned to the window and peered out of it, and it confirmed his suspicions. The view was just slightly off, compared to the view he usually got from his own room. Everything looked the same across the street, except for one minor detail: everything was shifted to the left.

Sherlock had climbed through his neighbour's window.

This realisation took no more than two seconds. In those two seconds, said neighbour's eyes had latched onto Sherlock's wrist. "You're bleeding," he said, and Sherlock looked at the boy, and then at his own wrist, where he could see a drop of blood sliding down from beneath his shirt sleeve.

He stripped off his coat quickly, and he could see that the fabric of his shirt was bloodied, a mark forming where his elbow had hit the ground. It was only now that his attention was called to it that he realised that it hurt.

The injury could not be that bad, given he had not fallen from a great height and he had managed to get back to his feet and keep running afterwards, but the blood was dark in contrast to his white shirt. This shirt would have to be disposed of, now. Otherwise, Mother would see it when she next did laundry and she would know that he had been up to no good.

"Let me see," the boy said, taking a step closer, and Sherlock jerked his arm away. He tried to step backwards, but he had not given himself any room to move; his back hit the wall behind him and he winced.

Immediately, the other boy put his hands up in the surrender position. "It's okay," he said gently. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Let me just take a look at it, okay?"

Sherlock regarded the boy sceptically, holding his arm close to his chest. "Why should I trust you?" he asked.

The boy considered the question for a moment. "Well," he said after a pause. "For starters, you were the one who broke into my house, not the other way around."

"I didn't break into your house," Sherlock argued, and then, when the boy gave him a look, he corrected, "I didn't intentionally break into your house. I thought it was my house."

"I figured as much," said the boy. "I know you're my neighbour."

Sherlock blinked. "You do?" he said, thinking to himself that he had no recollection of ever seeing this boy in his life. He was, however, grateful for the confirmation that he was, in fact, in the house next door to his own.

The boy – his neighbour – nodded. "Yeah, I see you around sometimes. You were the one who blew something up in your backyard once."

"That was a controlled explosion," Sherlock said quickly. "It was intentional."

"It made a loud noise and I thought someone was trying to blow up my house."

"It was hardly loud enough to sound like a bomb that was strong enough to take down a house."

The boy shrugged his shoulders. "I've never heard a real-life bomb, only the ones on telly. You can't blame me for not recognising the noise." He gestured to Sherlock's arm again, and then asked, "Can I take a look at it?"

Sherlock hesitated for a long moment, holding onto his arm protectively, but after a moment, he decided that this boy did not seem to be a threat. He extended his arm slowly and carefully, and the other boy took his wrist with one hand and used the other to push Sherlock's shirt sleeve up his arm. Sherlock winced as the fabric grazed over his injury, and when it was revealed, the boy hissed in sympathy. "Yep, that looks unpleasant. Had a nasty fall, did you?"

Sherlock pulled his arm away. "It's fine," he said shortly.

The other boy just smiled, and shook his head. "Let me get my first aid kit. I'll clean it up for you."

"That's hardly necessary."

"Look at the state of it, it's definitely necessary. Besides, wouldn't you rather I clean it up while you're here, so that you can hide it from your parents and you don't have to admit you sneaked out?"

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it, and frowned. "How did you know I sneaked out?" he asked after a moment.

"It's two o'clock in the morning and you climbed through my window, thinking it was yours," John said. "Been there, done that. Sit down and roll your sleeve up, and I'll go grab my first-aid kit."

Sherlock considered arguing, or perhaps just climbing out the window while the boy was out of the room, but, as much as he did not want to admit it, the boy was right. The nasty graze on Sherlock's elbow made it clear that he had left the house in the middle of the night, and Mother would definitely see the graze if Sherlock did not take care of it – or let the other boy take care of it – while he was here.

Sherlock's neighbour stepped out of the room, and Sherlock sat down on the bed. He tried to roll up his sleeve a little more, but it was too tight to move any further up his elbow, and the fibres of the shirt stuck to the drying blood on his skin. He hissed in pain, and then opted for unbuttoning his shirt and pulling his injured arm out from the sleeve. He left the other sleeve on so that the shirt was still half on his body, which made him feel like he was holding onto at least a little bit more of his dignity.

The other boy returned only a couple of minutes later, carrying with him a small first-aid kit. He flicked the light on when he returned to the room, and Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut tightly, the light bright in contrast to the soft light of the moon and the street lamps that Sherlock had become used to over the past several minutes.

The boy sat down on the bed next to Sherlock, crossing his legs, and he opened up his first-aid kit. Sherlock regarded it curiously, taking in the different bits and pieces that had been put into the kit. The first thing the boy pulled out was a packet of antiseptic wipes. "This will sting a bit," he warned as he opened the packet. He held a wipe in one hand, and with his other, he took hold of Sherlock's wrist, steadying his arm.

"I have a high pain tolerance," Sherlock said calmly, and then he hissed at the first contact of the antiseptic wipe and the graze. He only just managed to resist the instinctive urge to tear his arm away. The boy, fortunately, did not comment.

"I'm John, by the way," the boy said after a moment of silence, as he carefully wiped the graze on Sherlock's elbow. Sherlock ignored the stinging sensation as best he could, turning his attention to the boy – John's – face.

"Sherlock," he replied.

"Nice to meet you, Sherlock. What were you doing out at two am?"

Sherlock shrugged his free shoulder. "Walking," he said shortly. "I needed the air."

John gave him a curious look, like he didn't really believe that that was all there was to the story, but, much to Sherlock's relief, he did not try to push it. Instead, he turned his attention back to the graze, and Sherlock looked towards it as well. Already, it was looking cleaner than it had a moment ago. It did not seem to cover such a large surface of skin, now that some of the blood had been cleaned away.

"It's pretty deep," John said. "You must have fallen hard. Maybe on something sharp."

Sherlock tried to remember the ground where he had fallen, trying to remember if there had been shards of broken glass or any particularly sharp stones where he had landed, but that image in his mind was fuzzy. He had scrambled to his feet quickly. He had not given himself a moment to even assess his own injury, let alone the ground itself. "Possibly," he said after a pause.

John looked at the wound again. "I suppose if you were running, the momentum might have made it worse, too," he added. Sherlock did not comment.

After a moment longer, John finished cleaning the wound. He scrunched the wipe up into a small ball and tossed it at his bin, his aim perfect even though the throw seemed effortless. He fished through his first-aid kit again, pulling out a sticky plaster at first and holding it up next to the wound to assess the size, before shaking his head. "A bandage is probably safer," he said, putting the plaster back in the first-aid kit and pulling out a small roll of bandages instead. "It's a bit dramatic, I know, but at least it means you won't tear half your skin off when you tear off the plaster."

"I highly doubt half my skin would come off with a small piece of sticky plaster."

"I'm exaggerating, genius. The point remains: pulling off a plaster when has been stuck to a nasty graze like that will hurt. Give me your arm."

Sherlock extended his arm again, wincing a little at the pulling sensation as the grazed skin of his elbow stretched. John started with a piece of plastic (to avoid the fabric catching on the graze, John explained), which he wrapped around Sherlock's elbow. He followed that with the bandage, and secured it in place, before patting Sherlock once on the shoulder.

"All fixed," he said cheerily.

Sherlock looked at the bandage that was wrapped around his arm. It made it look worse, in a way, like Sherlock had received an injury as severe as a broken bone rather than just a graze, though it felt less uncomfortable now that it was clean and no longer catching on the fabric of his shirt. Plus, it helped to have it cleaned up here. Like John had said, it was a lot safer to deal with it far away from mother's prying eyes, and John seemed to have done a much better job than Sherlock would have done should he have dealt with it himself.

"Do you do this a lot?" Sherlock asked, reaching for his shirt sleeve to slide his arm back into it again.

John shrugged his shoulders. "From time to time. My sister tended to get up to no good as a kid – still does, but in different ways, now. Anyway, she was always getting hurt when she was little, and I was always the one patching her up." A nostalgic smile came over his face, and he added, "She used to call me Doctor John."

Sherlock carefully pulled the sleeve over his arm, hissing as his elbow bent and caused discomfort, but after a moment of fiddling he managed to have the shirt on properly again. "You would probably make a decent doctor."

John smiled a little. "I want to be. Eventually."

"Between your sister and patching up people who accidentally climb through your window, I'm sure you're getting plenty of practice," Sherlock said, putting on his coat and getting to his feet. "Well, your assistance was much appreciated. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to my own room before my mother realises I'm not there."

He turned to head towards the window, and he heard John stand up behind him. "Where are you going?" John asked.

"Home," Sherlock said, frowning in confusion at the question. "Like I just said."

"No, I mean, are you going back out the window?"

"Obviously," Sherlock said. "Do you have a better suggestion?"

"Yes, actually. We can go out the front door, like civilised human beings."

"I'd rather not risk running into the rest of your family. While I doubt _you_ are going to tell my mother that I accidentally broke into your house, I expect that your own parents might be a little less willing to let my visit go unnoticed."

"Don't worry. I can guarantee you won't run into anyone right now even if you walk down the stairs banging pots and pans together. It's just me and dad – Harry's gone to her girlfriend's house for the night, and dad won't wake up for anything."

"Can you be certain? I'd rather not take the risk based on nothing more than how heavy you think your dad sleeps."

"Trust me," John said. "With the amount he had to drink when he got home today, he won't be awake until mid-morning at the earliest." The tone that John used was casual, but there was a tightness in his voice that made it clear that this was something of a sensitive topic. Sherlock decided not to push it, if only to keep John from taking out his anger by telling Sherlock's mother where Sherlock had been tonight.

"Lead the way, then," he said, and John turned, guiding them out the door and out the hall.

They did not risk making too much noise, even if it was unlikely that John's father would wake. They walked on their tiptoes, and did not speak. When they reached the front door, John opened it, very, very slowly, wincing at the little creak that it made, but there was no sound from the other side of the house that indicated that John's father had been woken by the sound.

Sherlock stepped out first, expecting John to maybe say goodnight and then shut the door behind him, but, instead, John stepped out as well, shutting the door enough to block out most of the sound but leaving it a little bit ajar.

"There really is no need to see me off," Sherlock said. "It won't take me thirty seconds to get to my own room."

"And you're going to climb through your window, aren't you?"

"Obviously. Your father might sleep like a log, but my parents will realise if I go through the front door."

"That's what I thought," John said. "So, I'm coming, so that I can at least help you climb through your window."

"I can climb through my own window. I've done it dozens of times before."

"I'm sure you have, but you haven't done it dozens of times with a nasty graze like that on your arm."

"Be that as it may, I still managed to climb through your window with the graze. I think I can manage."

"Adrenaline is a hell of a drug," John said. "And, you see, there would have been a lot more adrenaline pumping through your system while you were being chased by people who you're scared of."

Sherlock opened his mouth, and then closed it again. After a moment, he said, "I didn't say I was being chased."

"You didn't need to," John said. "You practically fell through my window, looking panicked. It's not a leap to work out that someone was after you."

Sherlock pursed his lips and looked away, avoiding John's eyes. This was not a discussion he was having with a complete stranger. In fact, this was not a conversation he was having with anyone, ever – even though John was looking at him with a gentle expression on his face and was showing a lot more kindness than Sherlock was used to receiving.

"I get it," John said after a moment, his voice soft. "Like I said: been there, done that. Not to sound cheesy or anything, but it gets a hell of a lot better once you get to the last year or two of school. And I'm pretty sure it'll get better still after that."

"That sounds incredibly cliché."

"Yeah, I know it does," John said. "But it's true all the same. So, come on. Let's get you home."

He gestured to the path leading from his house to Sherlock's, and Sherlock turned and started to walk. John immediately fell into step beside him.

They walked in silence for a moment, but as they turned onto Sherlock's front yard, John asked, "You're going to be okay, yeah?"

"It's just a graze," Sherlock said. "The whole first-aid treatment was completely unnecessary. Of course I'm going to be okay."

"That wasn't what I was talking about," John said, and when Sherlock turned to look at him, he clarified, "Whatever it was that made you sneak out of your house, and whatever – or whoever – it was that made you run home and climb through my window – that's what I'm more concerned about."

"I'm –" Sherlock started, but John gave him a look that seemed to say two things: one, that he wouldn't believe Sherlock if he lied, and two, that he would not hold any sort of judgements against Sherlock, should Sherlock tell him anything more truthful. "I'll be fine," he said after a moment, which felt more honest than using the present tense. "It's hardly anything new. I'm used to it."

"That's not reassuring, you know," John said, his voice becoming soft. It made Sherlock feel vulnerable, to have someone speak to him like this, like he was, in some way, important and deserved to be cared for. "Do you have someone to support you? Someone you can talk to about these sorts of things?"

"I don't need anyone," Sherlock said, and though John's voice became gentler, Sherlock's became tighter. "I hardly need support."

"You shouldn't have to go through this alone."

"Alone is what I have. Alone protects me."

"No, friends protect people."

Sherlock looked at John briefly, and then looked away. "I don't have friends," he said, and out of the corner of his eye he saw John's expression become sympathetic.

"If you want to be alone, then I'm not going to stop you," he said after a pause. "But, if you want someone to talk to, or just someone to cheer you up or just – anything - I'm right next door. Literally. I'm happy to be a friend, if you need one."

Sherlock was silent for a long moment. "Why?" he said at last.

John shrugged. "Because no one should have to go through anything alone if they don't want to. That's all. Now, are you climbing through your window or have you changed your mind?"

Sherlock stared at John for a moment longer, before turning and looking at the window above his head. "I don't have another option."

John nodded, clearly having expected that answer. "Come on then," he said. "I'll give you a boost. It'll hurt either way, but this will make it a little bit easier on you."

"I have done this dozens of times on my own," Sherlock pointed out, as John crouched down on one knee and locked his fingers together to make a foothold.

"You said that before," John said. "And I said, you haven't done it with that graze on your elbow."

"It's really not that bad."

"Are you going to accept my help, or are you going to stand there and be stubborn?"

Sherlock sighed, but he chose the first option. He put his hand on John's shoulder for support, and carefully put one foot into John's hands, testing it at first for stability before he let John take some of his weight. He stretched up with his good arm to grasp the bricks, where he knew he could fit his fingers around, and John pushed his foot up to help him until he could reach the window. It still hurt, stretching the grazed skin of his elbow, but it was not nearly as painful as it could have been had he tried to climb up himself.

Once he was safely through the window, he turned and leaned out to look at John, who was looking up at him, perhaps making sure that he was inside safely. He didn't want to risk talking – there was silence in the house, but Sherlock could not be sure that his voice would not be heard – so instead, after a moment's hesitation, he mouthed, 'Thank you'. He wasn't sure if he was referring to John helping him through the window, or something else.

"Goodnight," John replied from the front lawn, his voice hushed so much so that Sherlock barely heard it. Then, John turned, and he returned to his own home, and Sherlock moved to sit down on his bed, his mind much quieter than it had been before.


End file.
